


Thoughts on Free Will

by Purple_Starflower



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Castiel Dies Temporarily (Supernatural), Castiel in Love (Supernatural), Castiel is Bad at Feelings (Supernatural), Episode: s06e20 The Man Who Would Be King, Episode: s07e02 Hello Cruel World, Free Will, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Internal Monologue, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Originally Posted on Tumblr, This Is STUPID
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:14:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29887863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purple_Starflower/pseuds/Purple_Starflower
Summary: A small rewrite of The Man Who Would Be King/Hello Cruel World, but it's all just Cas' internal monologue. He is very dramatic so I hope this will be fun.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Kudos: 9





	Thoughts on Free Will

Castiel stood silent sentinel in the dark. He didn't have to — Dean was his charge no longer, and he wasn't quite bound by duty. Yet, he was here, standing across a lit window, - quiet, watchful- his wings spread wide, iridescent in the starlight that touched them; his grace seeping into the ground underneath his feet, enveloping those around him in the soft warmth of protection. 

There wasn't much Dean wanted for in this life he'd chosen for himself ; this life that had kept him out of a world which chased him into the darkness time and time again. This much, Castiel knew. But he also knew that shadows lingered, still, as they often did. Some, waiting in twilit corners to dig their claws into his skin, others curled in his mind, restless, poised to pounce when the world would still, just so. There wasn't much Castiel could offer Dean, with Heaven tilted on its axis and his shoulders burdened with the weight of something he didn't quite understand yet, but this...this he could do. He could protect the one person he had promised to stand by, a promise that had been the first to break past the bounds of his duty. A promise that had left the bittersweet taste of freedom on his lips. A promise he clung to now, as much for Dean as for himself. 

So he stood, an indomitable force of nature, a being God had crafted from light, battling the shadows that circled Dean Winchester. His mere presence kept them at bay, his grace warning enough to deter the bravest of the creatures that lurked in the night. 

And on nights that the darkness within reared its head, leaving Dean tangled in his sheets, soaking in cold sweat, screams tearing his throat raw, Castiel felt the horror of it all through him. For him. First, he'd felt it as if it were a thing existing just beyond him, as if all that separated him from that broken, burning world was the thin wall of a motel room. Why he was so attuned to Dean's unguarded mind, he didn't know, but he reasoned it had something to do with the mark he had unwittingly left on Dean's soul as he'd raised him from hell. They were bound now, an inexplicable thread of power too ancient for him to understand tethering his grace to Dean's soul. 

He didn't feel it's presence often, but on the nights that he did, he let the channel widen, allowing whatever horror that plagued Dean's mind to crawl out to him instead. It ate at his ancient mind, this thing he had no control over, and he let it, dropping to his knees as shivers racked his borrowed body, as screams threatened to spill from his lips. He let it ravage him for a while, because it was all he could do in this strange realm where he couldn't protect Dean. 

It was worry, he told himself, for a friend, a fellow soldier, that saw him wind up in the trees across from the brightly lit kitchen window. It was selfish pride, he reasoned, a thing to prove to himself — that choices could be made. That freedom was not an ephemeral thing, lost in the face of difficulty and doubt. 

It was.....fear. That he'd lose...everything. And everyone. 

*

The day Castiel made the choice that would doom him for an eternity, Dean had been raking leaves. 

Castiel stood sentry, just as he often did, but he was restless, his feet shuffling, stirring a breeze that would rustle no leaves. He pondered, watching Dean who stood slightly hunched, his hands moving in a practiced, almost lazy motion, pulling a rake through brittle grass, gathering leaves in shades of orange and gold. 

It would be easy, to reveal himself to his friend, to let him help, to have him share this...responsibility that bent his spine and threatened to bury him. And yet...Castiel stilled, hesitant. He hadn't forgotten what war could do. What it had done to the life of the man who had his back to him now. He hadn't forgotten the clawing desperation, the all-encompassing sorrow, the drowning grief, the righteous, self-destructive anger. He hadn't forgotten the death, close on their heels, snapping its jaws, scratching their ankles, leering, present. There, even if it never quite caught up to them. 

He hadn't forgotten the price Dean had already paid for a battle he had been thrust into the midst of, and here he was, come to ask him to do it again. To take more from a man who had given all there was to give once before. Everything he had sacrificed, and here was Castiel, about to ask him for more. 

He couldn't, he realized.

And neither could he let this...ugliness encroach on the world that Dean had built for himself. If that meant he would have to deal with the likes of _Crowley_ , so it would be. He sighed then, his decision made, a stone sunk to the bottom of a lake. 

He felt weary. He felt...fearful. 

Steeling himself, he turned from the man whom he'd called his friend, the man who had given him the gift of freedom, of free will. 

He looked back once, watching as Dean walked towards the house clutching a bag full of debris, and felt something heavy settle behind his ribs. It was guilt, he reasoned, for he knew, even then, that Dean would not have approved. 

But sometimes, you did things to protect those close to you. Things that were without reason. 

Sometimes, you had to choose a path, even if the world warned you against it. 

Sometimes, freedom meant that you chose the wrong things. 

* 

Dean trusted him. It was an implicit thing, this trust, something he never questioned, no matter how much reason dictated otherwise. Bobby and Sam were different. More.... suspicious, perhaps. But Dean...Dean was loyal to a fault. 

It wasn't truly betrayal, all things considered, Castiel figured. His war was one fought in Dean's name, afterall, even if he never quite admitted it. It was one fought to keep Dean's world cocooned, safe from forces that would tear it apart too willingly. 

Perhaps, Castiel had lost his way, though he couldn't see that yet. Lies piled atop lies, and his hands were muddied by blood that would stain his...soul forever. His grace, tainted by the acts of violence that had no righteousness to them. But, all this, he reasoned, for a cause righteous enough. All this, because he sought to protect. All this, for peace — for freedom. 

Dean would understand, he told himself, even as he shattered his trust. Even as he witnessed the breaking of it in his emerald eyes set alight by the flames of Holy Fire. Dean would understand, and he would forgive Cas when he did. He had to believe that he would. 

And yet....that breaking weighed on him. It tore a hole into a world already unraveling at its seams. He felt himself cracking under the weight of the thing that had lodged itself behind his ribs. 

He was beginning to feel unmoored. Lost. He had no one he could turn to. No one to right his wrongs, to set him back on a path he'd strayed so far from that he could hardly recognise the world around him. 

So, Castiel prayed.

He sat with his head bowed and listened for an answer. A sign. Guidance that he should've known better than to look for. Perhaps, it was foolish of him to wait, to hold his breath. But he had been foolish for a while now. 

So, yes, Castiel prayed. And all that greeted his pleas was the heavy tread of silence. 

Despair and fear burned in him, melting into anger. Resentment and pride fuelled his fury. He could see his failure in front of him, a premonition taking shape, but he was too far into the trenches to turn back now. 

Perhaps he would lose, his worst fear come to life, ripping him from everything and everyone in this world that he had placed his life on the line for. 

Still, perhaps, it would all set itself right. Perhaps, he would win this unwinnable war, and he would return to Dean, his shoulders no longer hunched, for he would be free. Perhaps, despite everything he felt to the contrary, he would have done the right thing. Made the right choice. 

It was a flower blooming in a wasteland, this hope that rose within him, promises of an impossible future colouring his vision, lending him strength to keep going.

Hope, he'd learn soon enough, was treacherous that way. 

* 

Castiel was dying. 

_This_ , he thought to himself, as his vessel was beginning to burn at the stake of Leviathan power, _is the cost of free will._

Here, then, was his world come crashing around him. Here, then, was his choice - his _freedom_ \- hooks in his flesh, lowering him into the depths of perdition.

Here, then, was death. 

An ending so final, so incomprehensible to his immortal soul, that all he could do was let it come to pass. 

Castiel had seen death before, in a manner of speaking, but this was different. Death, for him, had never been the slow descent into darkness that it was now. It had never been the awareness of the fire within snuffing out, a stale breath plunging the world into darkness one candle flame at a time. 

It had never felt so deliberate, so much like a _choice_. An _action_. A _consequence_. 

He had been afraid of the plunge for so long, teetering at the edge of this precipice, tethering himself to the soil and rock in desperation, choice after choice made in the name of protecting a world he wasn't even a part of. But now he was in freefall, the universe falling away from him in thick, black rivulets, and he saw, perhaps truly, for the first time, the nature of the falsehoods he had told himself. 

In the agony of death, there was this one thing, then. _Clarity_. 

It seemed to Castiel, as he fought to keep control of the body that was beginning to degenerate, that he had always known that this was how his story would end — not in a ballad, but in a dirge. 

He felt the water of the lake lapping at his waist as if he was a world away from the body he had begun to think of as his. He felt the cold seeping through his clothes, felt his skin shift, roiling like it was harbouring an ocean of its own. His feet slipped on the rocks at the bottom of the lake as he stumbled deeper. He knew there wasn't long before he would sink, to never surface again. 

As pieces of him crumbled, he thought of the world he was leaving behind. A world he had so sought to protect that he had killed his own brethren in its name. A world he had now plunged into unspeakable darkness, something he couldn't even help fight, all because….

He thought of Dean, then — the righteous man with a chip on his shoulder, the _Micheal sword_ who refused to be wielded in a war that would break the world for the sake of it, in the name of an absent God. 

His friend, who had given him his first taste of free will. His brother-in-arms who had brought him to the doorstep of humanity, who had taught him to mind the shape of his heart, to listen to its beating wings. 

He thought of the man who had once been his charge, who had called him his _family_ , and felt the cracks in the remnants of his heart deepen, felt its presence, even in death, heavier than the weight of the world. 

It shouldn't have mattered that he had betrayed _one_ man, that he had hurt him, that he had been cruel. It shouldn't have mattered that he was leaving him behind, left alone to fend for himself on earth made hell by his hand. 

_It shouldn't have mattered that he was leaving him behind at all._

But then, his thoughts flitted to the months he had spent posted across the brightly lit window, the canopy of leaves overhead his only shelter, all in the name of keeping a word that didn't need keeping. He remembered the weight that had settled behind his ribs on an autumn evening, when he had made the choice that would come to break his world. He recalled the hurt glinting in eyes that shone like cracked emeralds in firelight, and the way his chest caved at the sight of it. 

In another moment, perhaps, Castiel would have shook himself free of the revelations that snaked their way into his mind. But he was dying, now, the waves from the lake tickling the hair at the nape of his neck, the cold bone-deep, slowing him, freezing him — _killing him_. He had no strength, nor desire, to deny himself the simplicity of truth. The odd comfort of it. 

This was who he was — who he had been for a while now — and in death, he could accept it. Here was one last bit of freedom, then, in letting himself be, if only for a moment. And he would grant himself that.

He was Castiel, an angel who had fallen, for the sake of Man. An angel who had fallen, in every way imaginable. 

An angel, driven — to war, to sin, to madness, and now, to _death_ — by the incomprehensible gravity of _love._

How very mortal of him, this, he couldn't help but think. How very _human._

His next step into the water submerged him, and for an instant, he was still, suspended in the deep blue that pressed against him, the darkness within him a tornado that twisted — foul, angry, a vortex of immeasurable power. And then it pulled. At the water, the air...at _him_. 

And so he was gone. 

~ END ~

_Let it be known:_

_I did not fall from grace,_

_I leapt to freedom._

_\--Ansel Elkins_

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a tweet that was asking people when they thought Cas and Dean realized that they loved the other person. Obviously when I thought of Cas, my mind ran to The Man Who Would Be King and I started rewriting the episode and two weeks later, here we are! For a short fic, it took me way too long to write it, so I really appreciate every singe one of you who reads it! Please consider leaving a kudos/comment if you enjoy this piece of garbage! thank you!! <3


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